CloudTheatre

Background

In 2020, COVID-19 struck the world, including Malaysia, causing the government to issue the Movement Control Order (MCO). Businesses closed and thousands of jobs were lost as a result of the MCO. People were forced to stay home, businesses were forced to go digital.

Problem

Although there are many platforms or ways for small and medium-sized businesses, retailers to sell their products online, there is no such platform for performers, producers, directors, stage managers, and event organisers.

They find it difficult to survive during the MCO period and cannot monetize their content unless they have millions of followers on Facebook, Instagram, or Youtube. Since those platforms serve advertisers first, they do not value the content of creators.

That's why we decided to work together to solve a problem.
How can we use technology to assist the performing arts industry in generating revenue when all theatres have been forced to close for more than a year?

Story

To address this problem, we developed CloudTheatre, a platform that would assist the performing arts industry in generating revenue during the MCO period. In just four weeks, we designed and developed a beta version of the platform, which was a simple web application similar to YouTube that included features such as donation, content protection, digital tickets, and a live chat for audiences to interact with performers.

After launching CloudTheatre in May 2020, we live-streamed our first online show, which was a monologue produced and directed by one of our founders, William. More than 300 people bought tickets to watch the live stream, indicating that there was a demand for this type of platform.

Based on feedback from audiences and performing arts professionals, we brainstormed ideas and discussed the scope, timeline, UI/UX design, and technical architecture of the platform.

Brainstorming ideas with Khailee Ng, Managing Partner of 500 Global, who's led 180+ investments in SE Asian tech startups, including Grab and Carousell. Formerly founded Groupsmore (acquired by Groupon) and Says.com (acquired by Media Prima).

In August 2020, we launched the improved version of CloudTheatre.

Solution Overview

The brand-new CloudTheatre provides a seamless end-to-end solution for organisers and audiences to host and experience theatre digitally. We have a long list of features from ticketing to streaming.

1. For the organiser, we provide them with digital tickets, prevent sharing, donation, reporting, live streaming, synchronized playback, and more, so they can sell tickets easily and effortlessly.
2. For the audience, we redesigned our interface to make it more fun and engaging. It has a lot of cool features, including live reaction and poll. Unlike Facebook or Youtube, our emojis appear above avatars, with avatars beneath the video to simulate a real theater experience. As if people are sitting around each other and reacting. Since the pandemic isolates everyone at home, spreading the joy and making people feel connected is vital.

Visit about.cloudtheatre.com to know more.

And we did not stop there. The CloudTheatre platform has expanded to Taiwan. Several months later, we launched CloudTix, a digital ticketing platform for on-ground shows, CloudTheatre Revive, an on-demand archive for performing arts shows in Malaysia. In October 2022, we consolidated three products into one and rebranded as CloudJoi.

Watch CloudJoi Launch in 120 seconds and Special Event Keynote to know more.

Result & Impact

As of 2022, We have sold over 150,000 tickets, generating over 6 million ringgit ticket sales. That's within the span of only 2 years, including the movement control order period. That means 6 million ringgit has gone back to the theatre industry including venues, producers, directors, performers, stage managers, designers, backstage crew, and more theatre practitioners.

Final Thoughts

Over the years, I have learned a lot, we faced many challenges, we solved them one by one, and we are not going to stop. Sadly, one post just wasn't enough.